The History of The Crinoline Petticoat

Think Mary Antoinette, Queen Elizabeth or the recently revived 1950’s Rockabilly movement, think Swan Lake and the fairy tale wedding gown. What do they all have in common? You’ve got it, serious petticoat action, brought to you by none other than the trusty, centuries-old crinoline…

Let’s take a closer look at this feminine phenomenon and you'll see that the crinoline petticoat has been the backbone of so many fashion movements throughout the ages.

Crinoline Petticoat Versions:

A crinoline is in essence a petticoat, structured with wire, wood or other sturdy materials (in a cage formation or a hoop skirt) or made out of a stiff fabric of horsehair (“crin”) and cotton or linen, which would be gathered, layer upon layer, to make great big voluminous underskirts. The horsehair version was the original one but was later replaced (in the 1850’s) by the caged hoop skirt.

Earlier Versions:

The hoop-style crinoline was certainly not the first of it’s kind. Prior examples of structured petticoats, fulfilling the same function, were known in the 16th and 17th century as the farthingale (made of cane, whalebone or willow) and in the 18th century as the pannier (the kind that Mary Antoinette wore, made of cane and extending out the sides, not the front). Although they went by different names they were, in essence, the same thing.

Horsehair Fabric:

The horsehair crinoline petticoat made its appearance in 1839, although the name described the fabric at first, it was soon being used to describe any kind of supportive petticoat or dress lining. With fabrics becoming increasingly intricately woven and heavy, crinoline (the fabric) was no longer sturdy enough for the job. It began to be replaced with quilted underskirts, stuffed with down and feathers (like carrying your duvet around town, fantastic). A stiffened cotton fabric was also sold as crinoline during this time.

Crinoline Petticoat Hazards:

Worn by high-class women of leisure as well as factory workers and maidservants, the crinoline wasn’t always the most practical of undergarments, with a tendency to get caught in machinery, wheel-spokes, and wind; or to rather explosively take flame! Thousands of autopsies during the mid 19th century were signed… ‘death by crinoline’.

Keep in mind that fashion at this time was not so much voluntary as mandatory, women who dressed outside the norm would be sent packing, shunned from society. There are ample writings by men of the era which prove that the fashion was awkward for wives and husbands alike, many men found the fashion ridiculous but could do little to stop the spread of it.

With so many crinoline related deaths and the constant restriction of movement for women and their attendant husbands, women's rights activists began campaigning against such limiting fashions as the crinoline petticoat. Such activists felt that the hooped variety crinoline was a step up from the heavy and cumbersome multilayered fabric versions, however.

Queen Victoria (1855) is said to have detested the craze, a famous song of the time began with the lyrics “long live our gracious Queen, who won’t wear crinoline!” The fact is that this was a rumor which started when the Queen requested crinolines be ditched for her daughter's marriage, as the Chapel Royal just didn’t have that kind of space!

The Skeleton Petticoat:

The steel hoop crinoline (or skeleton petticoat) was first patented by RC Miller of Paris, where it first became a huge hit, in April 1856. Britain followed suit and soon, factories were producing them for every woman on the street. Skeleton petticoats consisted of steel hoops connected by strips of fabric tape, in some cases whalebone or cane were also used…even inflatable rubber, depending on the manufacturer (although the rubber variety had a terrible smell and was quite unpopular).

Indeed, hooped crinolines were cumbersome enough, women found it hard to pass through doors and, should they take a tumble or climb a flight of stairs, more would be revealed than was appropriate! At their height, crinolines would expand the skirts of the wearer by up to 6 yards (18 feet!) at the widest point, though they began to diminish in size until in the 1870’s they were replaced by the smaller crinolette and then later, the bustle.

The cage crinoline was revived in the 1880’s to support the excessive bustles in fashion at the time, hoops would cross over one another to support the weight of the fabric. They were known as lobster pots because they so much resembled lobster cages.

New World Versions:

During WWI the crinoline took to the streets again, in full mid-calf length skirts with layered petticoats. It was considered patriotic to dress your best for men returning from war. The fashion continued through the 1920’s and, in the 1930’s, just before WW2, the hooped skirt returned. Queen Elizabeth really brought the fashion back. The bell-shaped, mid-calf crinoline was her nighttime and daytime look.

After the war, Christian Dior marketed the crinoline in the 1940’s, although not the steel hooped version but the nylon net variety. Crinolines were massive with the Rockabilly movement of the 50’s (Greece: the movie, we all remember those iconic polka-dot dresses). Now, in 2016, Rockabilly style can be seen on the streets again in full form.

Crinolines, if you ask me, are a fashion that will keep on coming back one way or another. They are a way to enhance any silhouette and make a wedding, prom or ball gown just that extra bit more special. When you think ‘fairytale', more often than not, what you should be thinking is ‘crinoline'.

I love how many women who were girls of the post-WWII era remember our crinolines. They were mandatory to being in style. Mom laid mine out, heavily starched, on a clean white sheet. They looked like giant flowers spotting the back yard. Then came ironing them so every ruffle stood out to its maximum. Like someone said, it was a generation of extreme change. Crinolines at 12, A-lines by 14, and bell bottoms and mini-skirts by 16.

My mother square danced in the ’60s and she had several crinolines – all itchy. She was never bothered by them because her mother had taught her to wear a simple slip underneath. It protected her skin from the itch.

The “men’s smoking room” at Shirley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, was built with narrow doors so the women could not enter. Even the female servants carrying refreshments to the room had to wait at the door for one of the male servants inside to get the tray. I thought that was an interesting way to keep the room “female free.”

My daughters’ service organization wears hoop skirts and crinolines under their formals at meetings & events. My grandmother remembered the stiff multilayered skirts and used to tell me when I was little that I would not have been so eager to wear one if I had to deal with it all day, every day! Give me my shorts & tank tops!! It cracks me up when these 13-year-olds want me to make them a dress full enough to go over a hoop. I am going to share this article with them.

This is how I dress NOW. I must own at least 30 petticoats, different colors and lengths. The only time I don’t wear them is right now in Texas when the heat gets over 100. I will wear them in the 90’s though. I also have a very few dresses that are slim skirts that I don’t wear them lol. I am a homemaker and have been for 38 years. I do not own a pair of pant or jeans. I wear a skirt or dress every day with heels covered with an apron that always coordinates. When I leave the house I also wear a hat and gloves. I get a LOT of compliments. Women will say they wish they had the gumption to dress like me but the main comments come from older men who say how much they miss seeing women dressed like me or younger men saying how refreshing it is to see someone actually care about how they look.

Thank you so much for a very interesting article. I still have a couple of net petticoats from the 50’s which my daughter has borrowed, we just didn’t starch them, but they still made the skirts stick out nicely.

I made a crinoline for the one and only wedding dress I made for a friend in another country. Since the climate was hot I lined her gown with 300 thread count cotton sheeting as well as the top of her crinoline. Since the dress was opaque, I used tulle in one of the colors of her wedding for a surprise flash while dancing.

PS. Autocorrect changed the name of “Grease” the movie to “Greece” the country.

I made one petticoat and purchased 3 more. I love the 50s dresses and have made quite a few of them. I also get nice comments when I go out dressed in one of my outfits. I also made a long skirt from the 1800s and have a huge poofy slip for under that one. I have worn it for Halloween with a Marie Antoinette wig. I LOVE the huge poofy style of those times!!! Thank you for this article!!

I made myself 2 petticoats. ( Wt&blk).
I am rather amazed at the positive responses I receive when I wear them. I suggest making one. You’d be surprised that you actually probably own a few dresses it can be worn with!
“Make it and they will be worn”…

So interesting to learn that history. When I was a little girl in the 50’s, we would call them “stick-out slips” because they made the skirt of your dress “stick-out”. :-). Sometimes they were sewn into the dresses and many times they were itchy and uncomfortable! My mother would say “sometimes you have to be pay the price to be beautiful”. ;-).

I remember having many, many crinolins when I was a young pre-teen and teen in the late l950’s and early 60’s. Mama used to wash them and starch them heavily and drape them over open umbrellas to keep their shape. When getting on the school bus, you had to clamp your arms tight against the skirt to keep the petticoats from blinding you (and the busdriver) while boarding. It seems we went straight from those frilly skirts to the hip-stitched fashion in a heartbeat. When I close my eyes, I can still see 3 open umbrellas in our kitchen covered in net.

Thank you for your VERY interesting take on history! I am 74 and when I was in high school (late 50s) the crinoline was VERY popular !!!!! The more the merrier! Imagine 3 girls to a seat on the school bus!!!! Skirts sticking straight up, up to our eyebrows!!!! (I’m sure the bus driver got slapped in the face every time a girl got on the bus and immediately turned to go down the [ very narrow] aisle!!!!

Very interesting. I can remember wearing a curtain rod wire in the hem of a petticoat (late 1950’s and then in the early to mid 1960’s the Huff n Puff petticoat became fashionable. This was a plastic tube (very like a bicycle wheel tube) which you blew up using the built in fitting (as used in inflatable beach balls). The endless tube was fitted into a soft material channel approx. 3/4 way down from the top of the petticoat. The draw back to this design was if wearing it when trying on a dress in the making. Pins would puncture it, if the wearer happened to sit down. Yes this happened to me but the manufacturer of petticoat did supply me with a new tube. What a nightmare to sew it back in place as the bottom edge of the channel had to be unpicked to remove the tube and then resewn when tune was in position.

Likewise, I recall wearing nylon net petticoats under my skirts to make them “stand out.” I hated them-they scratched your legs unless they were covered with ribbon, which most were not! They were particularly popular under square dancings skirts which my parents, and myself were “into” for awhile.

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